Ugh. Even the would-be “illustrations” the Trumpers are using in today’s press gaggle at NASA look like those elementary school posters from the 1960s which proclaimed “We will live and work, on the Moon”. Yikes.

As I’ve often written, there is little scientific need or reason (other than hubris) to put humans on the Moon, again — and no reason to live there. Same, same — Mars.

There is however, a vast trove of science to be conducted remotely on the moons Titan and Europa… in looking for organics, robotically. Finding currently thriving biology on any non-Earth rock or ice patch would be… the discovery of discoveries.

And we could do it without risk to any human crew. But Trump is all hat — no cowboy. Everything is about a TV show, for him — not about actual scientific advances — in any endeavor. He wants a flag-planting, imperial presence on every rock he might reach. Ugly.

So I know the real scientists at NASA are cringing, as completely fantastical deadlines and missions are now being talked about… to build bases on the Moon, and thus forego real science — on the outer moons, where exo-Earth / cellular life might be dividing right now, under sheets of ice.

And the flight controllers of the the Mercury and Apollo programs are certainly cringing at this regression against real space science.

That is my opinion — not new, here — but ever more firmly held, now. We should go to Titan, and back to Mars — robotically, to collect the tubes left by Perseverance. Damn. Damn. Damn.

नमस्ते